August Reinisch is Professor of International Law and European Law at the University of Vienna.
Mary E Footer is Professor of International Economic Law at the University of Nottingham.
Christina Binder is Professor of Law at the University of Vienna.

The European Society of International Law (ESIL) is known for its particularly dynamic character. After 10 years of existence it has proved that it is one of the most cutting-edge scholarly associations in the field of public international law. At its 10th Anniversary Conference in September 2014, which was held in Vienna, participants assembled in order to discuss ‘International law and…’, the proceedings of which are published here. Going beyond the usual related disciplines of political science, international relations, economics and history, this conference ventured into less well-trodden paths, exploring the links between international law and cinema, philosophy, sports, the arts and other areas of human endeavour.

As the proceedings show, it is clear that international law has long been influenced by other fields of law and other disciplines. They also explore whether the boundaries of international law have been crossed and, if so, in what ways.

This is the fourth in the Series of Select Proceedings of the European Society of International Law (ESIL) featuring the most important and interesting papers presented at the previous ESIL Conference (Valencia, 2012). As usual, the best papers from that conference have been re-written, edited and drawn together by the two editors to present a perspective on what is a flourishing forum for the discussion of new ideas and scholarship on international law.

Mariano J Aznar is Professor of Public International Law at the University Jaume I.
Mary E Footer is Professor of International Economic Law at the University of Nottingham, School of Law

From the Introduction by Mariano Aznar and Mary Footer:Our programme outline on Regionalism and International Law/Régionalisme et droit international suggested that Europe – for better or for worse – has historically been at the centre of the world from the Modern Era onwards, creating different spaces for the adoption of European faiths, social organisation and legal systems. Similarly, Europe’s influence on other continents called for a re-evaluation from a legal point of view. Thus, ‘feedback’ from other regions about Europe and the European approach to international law, if there is one, was important to us. Instead of adopting a ‘horizontal’ view in its analysis of regionalism, the fifth Biennial Conference examined regionalism to discern the existence of new centres and peripheries. The focus shifted from economic development to access to technology, from new generations of human rights to the immaterial concepts of groups and ethnicity, as well as taking into account other variables so as to foster new approaches to regionalism and its impact on international law. At Valencia there were eight fora and eight agorae, each with their unique approach, to examining the relationship between regionalism and international law.

This book continues the series Select Proceedings of the European Society of International Law, containing the proceedings of the Fourth Biennial Conference organised by ESIL and the University of Cambridge in 2010. The title of the conference was ‘International Law 1989-2010: A Performance Appraisal’. The highlights, selected for publication in this volume, cover a wide spectrum of topics in international law.

James Crawford is the Whewell Professor of International Law at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Jesus College.
Sarah Nouwen is Mayer Brown Research Fellow in International Law at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Pembroke College.

From the Introduction by James Crawford and Sarah Nouwen:‘DON’T BE AFRAID of the Performance Appraisal’, we wrote in the programme of the fourth biennial conference of the European Society of International Law that took place in Cambridge, UK, from 2 to 4 September 2010. There appeared to be little fear: our invited speakers jumped at the idea of assessing the performance of international law between 1989 and 2010. So did more than four hundred lawyers from across the globe who submitted abstracts in response to the questions of how international law, international institutions and international lawyers had fared in the 21 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. This third volume of the Select Proceedings of the European Society of International Law contains a selection of the invited and selected speakers’ answers to these questions.

This book contains the proceedings of the Third Biennial Conference organised by ESIL and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in 2008. The conference was entitled ‘International Law in a Heterogeneous World’, reflecting an idea which is central to the ESIL philosophy. Heterogeneity is considered one of the pillars upon which Europe’s contribution to international law is built and the subject was considered in a number of panels, including such diverse topics as migration, the history of international law, the rules on warfare and international environmental law.

Hélène Ruiz-Fabri is Professor of international law at the University of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne). She is also Director of the Institute of Comparative Studies of Paris and President of the European Society of International Law.
Rüdiger Wolfrum is Professor of international law at the University of Heidelberg and Director of the Heidelberg Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law.
Jana Gogolin is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law.

This is the first volume of proceedings arising from the biennial conference of the European Society of International Law/Societe europeenne de droit international, edited by Emmanuelle Jouannet, Hélène Ruiz Fabri and Vincent Tomkiewicz. The volume presents the highlights of the Paris Conference 2006, and the papers are evenly divided between English and French language contributions.

Emmanuelle Jouannet is Professor of International Law at the University of Paris 1 (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and Subsidiary-director of the CERDIN of Paris 1.
Hélène Ruiz-Fabri is Professor of International Law at the University of Paris 1 (Panthéon-Sorbonne). She is also Director of the Institute of Comparative Studies of Paris and President of the Europepan Society of International Law.
Vincent Tomkiewicz is Lecturer in International Law at the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis.

“…this volume contains a very useful, down-to-earth analysis of general conceptual aspects of international law. It is certainly good for international legal theory to be approached in such a transparent manner, cleansed of clichés and focusing on what international law actually is. This volume is certainly to be recommended to anyone who wishes to follow up on the pertinent issues of the relationship between international law, national interest, and ideological traditions.” Alexander Orakhelashvili, European Journal of International Law Vol 20, No 3, August 2009